brainpopfandomcom-20200223-history
Plot/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Rita and Moby An animation shows two heavy, glass doors. Tim approaches. He wears a suit and is carrying a stack of note cards. He does not see the doors and runs into them, face-first. TIM: Ow. Tim flashes an awkward smile and opens the doors. His nose is now red. Rita sits behind an office desk with her feet up. She is dressed in a suit and the New York City skyline is behind her. She looks unamused. Tim holds up his notecard. TIM: Okay, okay, so it's the sequel to the most beloved movie of all time: The Wizard of Oz. Rubies to Riches: Dorothy designs a line of ruby slippers, and boom, strikes it rich. RITA: Hard pass. Tim tosses that notecard behind him and consults the next one. TIM: All right, Wizard of Oz, Part 2: Twister. Dorothy, Toto, and Aunt Em become professional storm chasers. Rita sighs. She presses a button on her desk phone and speaks into an intercom. RITA: Bring me a club soda with a twist of lemon, and I mean a real twist, not that stuff from the plastic squeeze bottle. Rita's robot assistant, Moby, comes rushing in. He carries a beverage and a napkin on a serving tray. MOBY: Beep. Rita takes the glass and sees that the napkin is a letter. RITA: Well, what do we have here? Rita reads from the typed letter. RITA: Dear Rita and Moby, How do I write a story that people will actually want to read? Thanks, Rafiki. I can answer that, plus it'll end this fiasco of a pitch meeting. Let's talk structure—Tim, pull up a seat. Tim looks uncomfortable. Moby happily takes out his notepad and starts taking notes. RITA: Every decent story's got a plot: a chain of key events that drive the action. The first event causes the second, which causes the third, and so on till the end. An animation shows the pages turning in a picture book. The first page shows a boy standing next to a fence with a sign that says beware of dinosaurs. The second page shows the boy sticking his tongue out at a female Spinosaurus. The third page shows the fence was broken and a female Spinosaurus running after the screaming boy. RITA: Plots are what draw us in, stir up our emotions, and get us hooked. They make us want to stick with a story to find out what happens next. An animation shows a bedroom at night. A kid is in bed, reading a book underneath the covers with a flashlight. RITA: None of this is new—some of the rules for effective plot construction go all the way back to ancient Greece. Back then, plays tended to follow a three-part structure: beginning, middle, and end. MOBY: Beep. RITA: You start with a conflict, a challenge faced by the main character, called the protagonist. An animation shows a gladiator looking up at a big mountain. He gulps. RITA: In the first half of a story, the conflict escalates. The gladiator climbs up the stairs but then slips and falls on a banana peel. RITA: Then, there’s a reversal, and the conflict resolves or clears up. The gladiator climbs back down the mountain with ease. RITA: A couple of thousand years later, European writers were still following this basic structure. But, by then, they'd added a few wrinkles of their own. An animation shows a pyramid diagram with three sections labeled Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3. RITA: A German writer named Gustav Freytag broke the formula down into five steps. He organized them in a diagram now called Freytag's pyramid. The plots of most stories can be mapped onto this structure. An animation shows Gustav Freytag. With a quill pen, he adjusts the diagram to have five sections instead of three. MOBY: Beep? RITA: First up, there's exposition. An animation shows Rita in front of a poster of Freytag's pyramid. She draws a house at the first label, exposition. RITA: That's the set-up when the story's characters and setting are introduced. In The Wizard of Oz, the main character is Dorothy. She lives on a farm with her dog, Toto, and her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. An animation shows a silhouette of Dorothy and Toto walking to the fence outside their home. RITA: Dorothy dreams of exciting adventures in faraway lands. Learning what her character wants sets us up for what's to come. An animation shows a colorful rainbow appears in the sky above Dorothy and Toto. RITA: Next is the rising action, often set in motion by an inciting incident. In this case, a tornado hits Dorothy's house and carries her away to Oz. An animation shows a tornado pick up Dorothy's home into its orbit. RITA: It's around this point when we find out the story’s main conflict: Dorothy desperately wants to go home, but lots of obstacles stand in her way. An animation now reveals Dorothy, played by Cassie, in full-color. She emerges from the house with Toto to discover that she is in Oz. Monkeys, played by tiny robots, sing and dance around on a yellow road. RITA: Including the Vicious Vulture of the Valley, who’s the antagonist, the character opposite the protagonist in the conflict. An image shows the vulture. RITA: She wants to steal Dorothy’s ruby slippers, a gift from Glinda the Good Walrus. An image shows Glinda, played by Tim. He wears a pink dress with puffy sleeves. RITA: The rising action tends to take up most of the story. Maybe you've heard the phrase "the plot thickens"—that's what happens here. Events build to heighten the conflict, and the tension keeps mounting. An animation shows Dorothy walking down the yellow brick road, holding Toto. She is headed toward the Animal City in the distance. RITA: Dorothy and her animal friends navigate a big jungle, facing strange creatures and dodging the vulture at every turn. As Dorothy is walking, an animation shows the scene gradually change from green hills to a dark forest. More and more animals join her. They are dressed like the Lion, Toucan, Troodon, Rhinoceros and more. RITA: Finally, they reach the wizard, who says he’ll help Dorothy get home. An animation shows Dorothy and her friends nervously standing before a giant wizard on a throne. RITA: But only if she brings him the Vicious Vulture's volt. MOBY: Beep! RITA: Right, Dorothy's big face-off with the vulture is the climax: An animation shows Rita back at the diagram of Freytag's pyramid. She points vultures circling to the top of the pyramid and draws Vicious Vulture. RITA: The plot's peak, the most important moment! Following a mighty struggle, Dorothy triumphs by scaring off the vultures. An animation shows Dorothy and her friends in the Vicious Vulture's castle. The thunderstorm is on the castle with the circling vultures outside. The Vulture threatens the Troodon with fire and Dorothy dumps a bucket of water on her. The Vicious Vulture's volt fly away. RITA: The climax marks a turning point that changes the protagonist. After that comes the falling action, when the conflict is resolved. As it turns out, the wizard is a fraud who can't actually help Dorothy get home. Dorothy and her friends discover that the wizard is being controlled by Little Jimmy behind a curtain. He is wearing a tiny green top hat. RITA: But Glinda the Good Walrus can! An animation shows Glinda waving her wand over Dorothy, who has her eyes closed. RITA: She explains that Dorothy has the power within herself to go home—with a little help from her ruby slippers. An animation shows Dorothy clicking her heels in the ruby slippers. MOBY: Beep? RITA: Yeah, that's called a plot device, something dropped in to move the action forward. We knew the slippers were magic, but only at this key moment do we learn they can solve Dorothy’s problem. An animation shows Rita pointing to the right leg of the pyramid, where she has drawn the slippers. RITA: Sometimes, plot devices are too random or unbelievable to work... Like, a bunch of farmers that decide to become storm chasers for no apparent reason. Moby glances sideways at Tim. RITA: That kind of thing can turn off a herd of gazelles, disconnecting them from the story. Moby scribbles some notes, still looking over at Tim. RITA: Anyway, the last part of the pyramid is the resolution: the plot's final wrap-up. It's also called the dénouement. An animation shows Rita drawing a house at the end of the Freytag's pyramid diagram. RITA: The conflict is solved and the reader feels closure. Dorothy returns to Kansas safe and sound, realizing there’s no place like home. MOBY: Beep! RITA: Well, you don't want your story to map perfectly onto the pyramid. Rita walks back to her desk. She snaps her fingers. In an instant, Moby brings over her poster of Freytag's pyramid. RITA: It's a formula--track too closely to it, and your story will feel... formulaic, or fake. Like in this phase, you don't want every single moment to add to the tension. Rita points to the rising action section of the diagram. RITA: In The Wizard of Oz, the plot takes all kinds of fun little detours, like when we meet the Rhinoceros, Troodon, Toucan, Lion, and more animals! A little bit of looseness makes a story more lively and engaging. Rita circles the Rhinoceros, Troodon, Toucan, and Lion on the diagram. RITA: Some writers even mess around with the structure itself. They might skip the exposition and start in medias res, "in the middle of things." Rita crosses out the image of the house in the exposition section of the diagram. RITA: That can give the story a sense of urgency. Like, if The Wizard of Oz started right in the middle of the tornado! The background info might come in later, through flashbacks—scenes from an earlier time inserted in the story. Then, it would be a non-linear plot—a story that's told out of order. An animation shows the non-linear plots that Rita describes. RITA: Sometimes, a story begins at the climax, or even the resolution, then backtracks. Other stories might have more than one climax or no resolution at all! An animation shows the different story arcs that Rita describes. They all look different from the standard pyramid. MOBY: Beep! RITA: Well, before you try any of those, it’s a good idea to master the standard form. When you’re planning out your story, map the plot onto the pyramid. An animation shows Tim at home, looking at a blank poster of Freytag's Pyramid. RITA: Some writers start at the start: by imagining the characters and setting. Others envision the climax first, then backtrack to plan the events leading up to it. And some begin with the conflict and then figure out how it escalates and resolves over the course of the plot. Tim draws on the diagram in the different orders that Rita describes. RITA: Figuring out your plot can be a messy process with lots of false steps and revisions. Kinda the opposite of your finished story, which will be brilliantly structured. TIM: Gee, you really think so? RITA: Sure I do! Rita stands up and shakes Tim's hand. RITA: Now get back to the drawing board and write me a hit, kid! TIM: Yes, Ma'am! Tim salutes, then collects his note cards. RITA: Call me if you need anything, and let's do lunch real soon! Tim leaves, beaming at Rita. He bumps into the door again on the way out. As soon as Tim is gone, Rita crosses her arms and glares at Moby. RITA: How many times have I told you: That guy shows up, call security. Moby nods, taking notes. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts